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The old button from the Environmental Club days which I just happened to find on Earth Day! It is a little beat up (particularly the ends of the ribbon), but no worse for the wear, I think. And it is one of the few items that I have left from those days, so it carries a lot of great memories for me! Nothing Changes Until You Do!
Here is a picture of a very similar logo, with the same message, that was on the t-shirt that I purchased from the BCC Environmental Club and, if memory serves me correctly, may even have helped to make. There were a few projects like that which club members, myself included, were regularly involved with. It has been so long, however, that I no longer recall specifically if I actually helped to make these or not, although I do believe so, since I remember seeing the process of the t-shirts being dyed. In any case, I loved this t-shirt, and have kept it ever since, even if I do not regularly wear it. Since it was part of my experience with the BCC Environmental Club days, as well as more generally having an environmental theme, it seemed appropriate to share it here.
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."
~Mahatma Gandhi
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
~John F. Kennedy
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Si’ahl (Seattle)
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Si’ahl (Seattle)
Okay, now this really will be my last Earth Day week-themed blog entry.
It was just that I found the contrast between how climate change is viewed in other English-speaking countries, versus how it is viewed (very skeptically by far too many) here in the United States as incredibly stark and revealing.
Nicola Sturgeon declared a "climate emergency" in Scotland, during the SNP conference.
Here is some of what she said during the conference:
The first minister said: "A few weeks ago, I met some of the young climate change campaigners who've gone on strike from school to raise awareness of their cause.
"They want governments around the world to declare a climate emergency. They say that's what the science tells us. And they are right.
"So today, as first minister of Scotland, I am declaring that there is a climate emergency. And Scotland will live up to our responsibility to tackle it."
Here is some of what she said during the conference:
The first minister said: "A few weeks ago, I met some of the young climate change campaigners who've gone on strike from school to raise awareness of their cause.
"They want governments around the world to declare a climate emergency. They say that's what the science tells us. And they are right.
"So today, as first minister of Scotland, I am declaring that there is a climate emergency. And Scotland will live up to our responsibility to tackle it."
Meanwhile, here in the United States, the country that has, frankly, produced far and away more greenhouse gases that have contributed to climate change than any other nation in the world, we keep electing climate change skeptics to very high office, and they keep dictating the political arguments and actions, or lack thereof.
We now have someone in the White House who once tweeted that climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese to hurt the American economy. Apparently, 97 percent of the world's scientists are in on this gigantic hoax.
It sounds crazy to imagine that people would actually believe that. Yet, tens of millions of Americans in fact do believe it. They take the word of elected officials, beholden to major energy players (and big polluters), who's biggest defense against the arguments that scientists make for climate change is that they themselves are not scientists. And it is to the detriment of us all.
This is not to say the other countries have it absolutely right. We all seem to continue to practice very bad habits, and to force others, particularly future generations, to have to pay for our mistakes, to live with the results.
But nowhere is the selfishness and narrow-mindedness of such thinking as apparent and transparent as it is here in the United States.
Indeed, this is the kind of story, when it seems that literally, everyone else is getting it at least quite a bit more right than we Americans are, that makes me feel a bit of shame and embarrassment towards the United States of America today.
What have we become?
Here is the link to the article that I used in writing this blog entry, including the quotes used above (in yellow):
Nicola Sturgeon declares 'climate emergency' at SNP conference by BBC News, 28 April 2019:
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